Everyone knows there’s a shortage of primary care physicians, especially in rural areas. The state of Missouri has decided to alleviate this problem with a bill, signed into law by the governor this month, authorizing medical school graduates who have not done any residency training to act as “assistant physicians.” The assistant physicians will come from the pool of 7000 to 8000 graduates, mostly of offshore medical schools, who were unable to match to any residency. After spending 30 days with a “physician collaborator,” assistant physicians would be allowed to practice independently as long as they were within 50 miles of their collaborator. The physician collaborator is also required to review 10% of the assistant physician’s charts. Assistant physicians would be expected to treat simple problems and could prescribe Schedule III [including hydroxycodone or codeine when compounded with an NSAID as well as synthetic tetrahydrocannabinol], IV, and V drugs. Opponents of the bill included the American Medical Association, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, and the American Academy of Physician Assistants. According to healthleadersmedia.com, the Missouri State Medical Association supported the bill. Its government relations director and general counsel, Jeffrey Howell, said the new rules would be no different than those for older doctors. “A lot of those guys didn’t have to go through a residency program. They just graduated from medical school and went back to the farming communities they grew up in, hung out their shingles, and treated people.” Perhaps Mr. Howell hasn’t heard that medicine is a bit more complex than it was 50 or 60 years ago. Proponents of the bill felt that rural...